Warm From the Inside Out
by bcbdrums
Summary: Drakken held up his prize in triumph. "Just think of it, Shego! All of Eastern Europe's economy under my control!" "Yeah yeah, right now you need to think about escaping— Dr. D., watch out!" She watched his eyes grow wide like saucers as he saw the large boulder immediately in the path of his snowmobile.


_**A/N: This is another answer to a Tumblr prompt from a "sensory" list. The prompt was "snow being shoved down the back of your coat." I don't think I achieved much sensory with this. I sort of gave up and went back to my usual style, lol. But it was delightful to write. The idea of Shego having 'plan vetos' belongs to GothicThundra.**_

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Shego pursed her lips as the driving snow hit her cheeks like repeated slaps in the face. She lifted one gloved hand to wipe off her goggles as they quickly became clogged with the offending cold flakes and carefully watched the road ahead as she guided her snowmobile down the dangerously steep mountainside.

"Drakken!" she shouted, but her voice was lost on the wind. She slowed down and glanced back over her shoulder.

Drakken was several yards behind her on his own snowmobile, but he was turned back and shouting something up the hill at their adversaries that she couldn't hear. She continued slowing down until her snowmobile paralleled his.

"Drakken, hurry up! We've got to beat this blizzard to the airport!" she shouted.

Drakken turned toward her, nearly falling off his snowmobile in the process. His eyes gleamed behind his goggles as he held up his prize in triumph: a hard drive containing plans for...an oil pipeline? Shego had sort of tuned out what her boss's actual plan was beyond breaking into the Russian arctic base when he had explained it.

"Just think of it, Shego! All of Eastern Europe's economy under my control!"

"Yeah yeah, right _now_ you need to think about getting to— Dr. D., watch out!"

She watched his eyes grow wide like saucers as he saw the large rock immediately in his path.

"What are you doing!? Turn!"

He only flailed his arms in panic, clinging desperately to the stolen hard drive. He would impact the rock in seconds.

With a growl, Shego leapt off her snowmobile and tackled him off of his moments before the crash. She felt the heat of the explosion against her back as they rolled over and over.

When they came to a stop her face was planted in the snow, and her first breath was like filling her lungs with ice. She sat up with a gasp, suddenly shivering as the snow stuck to her face, hair, and coat.

All that was left of Drakken's snowmobile was smoking wreckage against the boulder that had started the trouble. Shego squinted to see if she could see hers further down the path, but the snow was coming down even thicker and the wind growing more harsh.

She felt something bump against her leg and looked down to see Drakken sitting up, rubbing his head. She began sweeping out the snow behind him until she had a clear path for a very specific purpose.

"Yeowie!" he shrieked as her foot firmly impacted against his butt. "What was that for!?"

"You have to ask!?" she yelled. "We're in the middle of the arctic in a blizzard because _you_ didn't check the weather report, and now we have no transportation! We're probably going to be captured by the Russian military!"

Drakken stood and shuffled away from her in the knee-deep snow, falling after only three steps due to his lab coat catching against the thick drifts.

"They won't capture us, nothing can fly in this," he said through chattering teeth, rubbing his arms repeatedly.

"Oh, just...just great! Then how are _we_ supposed to get out of here, huh?"

Drakken's eyes went wide and he yanked his goggles off as he dove back into the snow at Shego's feet. "Where is it? Where is it?!"

Shego looked down at him again, raising an eyebrow as her frown deepened. She watched him throw handfuls of snow aside for several seconds before finally losing patience.

"Ugh, what?!"

"The hard drive! Where's the hard drive?!"

The fury that came over her face could have melted the snow around them. "You lost it?!" she yelled as her hands lit up, startling him. To his credit, he only flinched for a moment.

"Help me find it!"

Shego rolled her eyes and set her hands in the snow. It hardened to ice at her touch and then began melting away. "You're so...you're...rrghh!" she growled at him while he continued throwing handfuls of the frozen element aside.

"Save the lip for later," Drakken said, suddenly frowning at her, "we've got bigger problems."

"Oh, _now_ he acknowledges that maybe this wasn't the best time for this!" she said with another roll of her eyes. "And what good's it going to do us anyway?"

The snow around her had melted down to the dirt, leaving her kneeling in a slightly muddy hole in the snow.

"The information on that hard drive is worth a fortune. It will sell at auction for millions on the black market! And besides that, in the wrong hands it will completely destabilize this region economically and politically," Drakken explained.

Shego shook her head, turning and moving her hands to a different patch of snow. "You know, how you're still alive with all these insane ideas is beyond me."

Drakken's face bloomed into a smile as he found his prize, but it instantly faded as he heard Shego's words.

"Oh, wait. It's because of me. Yeah, if we get out of this, I want a raise."

Drakken tucked the hard drive into his coat and rubbed his arms rapidly again, frowning at her back.

"And a long vacation, somewhere very warm."

Drakken's teeth chattered as he squinted through the blizzard at Shego's glowing hands, melting the snow away effortlessly. A devious idea entered his head and he quickly began scooping handfuls of snow together and shaping it into a ball.

"And next time you plan _anything_ that involves life-threatening natural disasters, I'm gonna— Hey!"

Shego ducked as Drakken threw a huge snowball at her. It sailed over her head and disappeared into the blizzard. She whirled around in anger and gasped as a second snowball hit her square in the face.

"Nyeh!" Drakken said, sticking his tongue out at her. "Enough lip, Shego, this plan will still succeed!"

Shego adjusted her goggles and pushed her hair out of her face, the snow that had been thrown joining the blanket of white flakes already clinging to her dark tresses. Drakken's confidence began to wane as he saw the furious look in her eyes.

"Eh, heh heh..." He hugged himself tightly again. "But...you can...have an extra veto next month. Shego?"

She said nothing, but scooped up a large handful of snow in one hand and with the other grabbed hold of his ponytail.

"Ow! Hey! Owwww, ow! Ow! Ow! Yeeeraaaaahhh!"

The shriek that came out of him when Shego shoved her handful of snow down his collar was terrified and animalistic. Drakken lurched away from her the instant her hand left his hair and began scrabbling at his neck, vainly trying to wipe away the freezing substance.

The sudden shock of wet cold sliding down his back sent him into a panic, and as the ice crystals melted to slush against his skin he continued to yell and grasp at his back for any method of relief. His dampened shirt pressed against his skin as he twisted and sent the snow sliding further until it hit his waistband.

"Hnghh!" he finally gave up, dropping down to his hands and knees as he tried to catch his breath, turning his face away from the driving snow.

"Three months worth, and an extra vacation."

Drakken didn't answer. Shego crossed her arms and studied his shaking frame. He was cowering now, the wind beating the snow against his back while he clasped his hands against his chin, his teeth chattering uncontrollably.

Her anger slowly started to dissipate. "Come on, it wasn't that cold."

His only response was to give her a spiteful look through narrowed eyes, that she noticed were starting to become puffy.

She wiped her goggles and looked around again, seeing only the snow flying into her face in one direction and away from her in the other. She couldn't even see the wreck of Drakken's snowmobile anymore, the blizzard having buried it in minutes.

"All right," she said decisively, standing and grabbing his arm to haul him up with her. "Time to find some shelter."

"Th-ther-re is-s no shel-lter-r," he stuttered quietly.

She looked at him hugging himself, his eyes tightly closed and face fixed in a frown as he attempted to hold his jaw still.

"Yeah..." she admitted with a sigh. She ignited her glow and began sculpting the snow around them with calculated green blasts until she had created a shallow barrier against the wind. She glanced at Drakken who was now crouching with his feet flat on the ground, hugging his knees to his chest.

She peered from behind the barrier and looked around them in a circle again. It was a complete white-out, and she could barely see five feet in front of her.

With another sigh she continued moving snow, melting it in strategic places and piling it high in others with her hands.

"You gonna help or what?" she said.

"What?" Drakken replied.

"I said, are you gonna help?" she spoke tersely, glaring at him.

He blinked and looked around, noticing what she was doing seemingly for the first time. He stood shakily to his feet and began piling snow up against the part of the barrier closest to him.

It wasn't long before they were encased in a tiny, shallow igloo. Drakken sighed heavily and returned to his crouch, this time pressing his hands between his legs and dropping his face to his knees. Shego poked an air hole low in the side of the structure and then dropped to her knees and sat back on her heels.

The make-shift shelter was dark but for the hole letting a tiny bit of dim, gray light in through the blizzard. Shego pulled her goggles off and started shaking the snow out of her hair. Drakken rocked unsteadily on his feet and she watched his ankles wobble beneath the hem of his lab coat.

"Why don't you sit down?" she finally asked.

He lifted his face and scrutinized her for a long moment before dropping his face to his knees again, causing his voice to be muffled when he spoke.

"My underwear is wet enough, thanks to you."

Shego rolled her eyes and continued shaking the snow out of her hair and brushing it off of her coat.

Drakken looked up again and studied her through narrowed eyes. "Why aren't you freezing?" he said, his breath coming out in large white puffs.

"Uh, hellooo?" she said, lighting up her hands briefly. For a moment, the igloo was bathed in an eerie green glow. "I never really get that cold."

Drakken frowned and planted his face in his knees, mumbling something incoherent.

Shego watched his ankles wobble again as she rubbed her face where the goggles had pressed into her skin. "Ugh... You know, for all your twisted plans you never think of anything practical. Why didn't you wear something water proof? Or, or at least a _coat_?"

There was a moment of silence, but then he mumbled his response into his knees. "It was supposed to be an in and out thing."

"It would have been if you hadn't kept stopping to gloat. Which, they probably didn't understand anyway since they speak Russian," she pointed out.

Drakken glared at her briefly before turning away and finally falling back to sit on his rear. He hugged his knees close to his chest and continued rocking back and forth.

"At least we won't have to deal with being captured..." she muttered.

She took her coat off and spread it out over the snow. She brushed off her boots before sitting cross-legged on the wool lining and finger-combing her hair.

"Oh s-sure, rub it in!" Drakken snarled.

Shego glared. "If you don't shut it you're going to be looking for a new shelter."

That stopped him. He gaped at her for a moment before turning away.

Several minutes passed in silence, but for the whistle of the wind against the air hole. Shego wrapped her hair around her shoulders, the damp from the snow giving her a chill but knowing it would still give her some insulation from the cold. She may not have been freezing, but she wasn't immune to the effects of the negative temperatures.

"H-how long...wi-ill we be here?" Drakken asked quietly.

She looked at his shaking shoulders and back. "Until the wind dies down enough that we can travel."

"Ho-ow...long wi-ill that b-be?"

She looked at the thin material of his damp trousers and saw the tremors in his legs beneath.

"Hours at minimum..."

Drakken pulled his legs tighter against his body and hung his head. There were still a few snowflakes in his hair, but most had melted, leaving his hair wet and his ponytail plastered against the back of his neck. He had stopped rocking, which made his shivering more evident.

"...What kind of insulation does your coat have?" she asked.

He didn't answer.

"Dr. D.?"

After a few seconds he turned slightly, making eye contact with one eye, and then shook his head.

"You don't know?"

"S-s-...something...i-ineffective," he got out through his shaking jaw.

Shego stared at his back for a long minute. He had already hidden his face again and was shaking so much that if she didn't know better, she would have thought he was laughing about something.

"Oy..." she finally said. "Come here."

He peered at her again.

"Sit on my coat, it's wool-lined."

He looked at her uncertainly as she moved aside, patting the garment with her hand. After a few moments he turned and crawled toward her, brushing the snow off his rear before sitting in the center of the coat and immediately hunkering down again.

"No. Sit up and open your coat."

Drakken looked up in confusion. "W-what?"

"Open your coat. Gotta warm you up, Doc."

His hands didn't move. "I...don't..."

"Ugh," Shego grunted in disgust and rose on her knees above him, reaching down behind his drawn-up knees and feeling for the hidden buttons on the garment.

"What a-are you doing!?" he cried in alarm.

"I am not going to explain to your mother how you froze to death stealing Russian oil secrets. Now move your legs and make room."

She had gotten his coat undone and now was prying his knees apart, wedging her body between them. His eyes were wide with fear when she sat down facing him, wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling her torso tightly against his.

"Now tuck your legs in. And pull your coat around me and hold onto me."

Drakken didn't move, apparently frozen now from fear instead of the cold.

"We'll both be warmer this way," she said impatiently.

His jaw was still shaking, his pursed lips trembling. Finally he crossed his legs around her and pulled his coat up to her shoulders.

"Good, now put your arms around me Mr. Unprepared."

She felt him obey, the long front-pieces of his double breasted coat pressing against her back. She pulled herself tighter against him, and his arms tightened instinctively. She slipped her arms up his sides and around his back beneath his coat, and he gasped.

She set her chin on his shoulder and leaned her head into his. "And if you tell anyone about this, you'll be wishing you were out in the blizzard."

She barely ignited one of her hands in warning and knew he got the message from the way he tensed.

"W-we just...s-stay like this?" he asked, his voice loud next to her ear.

"Unless you'd rather freeze," she said, closing her eyes.

He shifted his calves, which she felt against her rear. She rolled her eyes beneath her closed lids. The things she did for a paycheck...

"What if...my l-legs...fall asleep?"

"Then deal with it."

She inhaled the scent of snow and sweat that was on his neck. He was still shaking, but she could tell the transfer of her body heat was already helping. But his breathing was still too quick and he was still tense.

"Sh-Shego, I...I'm not s-sure I'm c-comfortable w-with—"

She pulled her head back to look him in the eyes, frowning at him commandingly.

"Are you warmer?"

He blinked in fear.

"_Are_ you warmer?"

His brow rose as realization came. "Yes?"

"Good. Now shut up," she said, closing her eyes and settling her head against his again. Maybe if she imagined herself somewhere else she could forget that she was snuggled against her boss in a way that was actually very inappropriate, if she let her mind go there.

She didn't, and thought instead about the time they nearly made Kim Possible embarrass herself out of existence. She smiled to herself at the memory of the dribble cup drenching the teen's expensive dress. It had been a great plan, up until it wasn't.

Drakken, for his part, wasn't as easily able to dismiss the feeling of his sidekick pressed against him. Probably because he had never held anyone close quite the way Shego had decided they needed to be.

His shivers had started to fade, but were being replaced by tremors of anxiety. He was a naturally touchy person, and Shego wasn't. Though she always tolerated his spontaneous hugs and grasping of her hands.

Maybe...maybe it would be okay...

"Hey, Dr. D., you remember that time we almost made Kim Possible embarrass herself to death on a date?"

Drakken grinned. "Hn."

"And she ruined her dress with that dribble cup?"

Drakken started to chuckle. "And then she sat on a whoopee cushion, and squirted ketchup in her date's face."

"And then knocked the whole table on top of him!"

Before long they were laughing so hard that Drakken nearly forgot about the awkwardness of the situation. He smiled as he finally let his head rest against hers. As mean as Shego could be, times like this made him wonder what other layers lie beneath his sidekick's tough exterior.

Nearly two hours they were trapped in the blizzard, and only four times did he say something that earned him a threat. And while he was still cold, he had stopped shivering only minutes after she had come up with the idea of hugging.

They had stopped talking after awhile simply due to the energy it wasted. Drakken now had his eyes closed and almost felt he could drift off to sleep when he noticed how strangely quiet it had become.

"Shego?" he said quietly.

He pulled back to look at her, and her head lolled to one side briefly before her eyes snapped open.

"What?"

"You fell asleep?"

"Mmm..." she hummed, peering around in the gray light which was brighter than it had been before. "The wind stopped."

Drakken looked toward the air hole and realized that it wasn't whistling anymore, and the light that peeped inside was a bit whiter.

He felt an instant chill as Shego unwound herself from their tight embrace. She used her glow to melt the air hole bigger and Drakken, blushing, took the opportunity to back away and hastily button up his coat again.

Shego poked her head out of the shelter for a moment and then dropped back inside.

"The blizzard stopped. Give me my coat and let's get out of here."

Drakken waited for her to fasten her own coat and put her goggles back on, and then scrambled after her out of the tiny igloo. When he was out he instantly threw his forearm up to shield his eyes. The sun was out and all around them was nothing but the blinding white of the snowfall.

"Um...Shego... Can I borrow your goggles?"

She halted in brushing the snow off her coat to glare at him. "Are you kidding me?"

"Um. Yes. Just kidding!" Drakken grinned nervously.

"Oy. Come on," she said, grabbing his arm and starting downhill in the knee-deep snow.

"Wait! We should go back up."

"To the Russian base?"

Drakken squinted at her beneath his forearm. "It's closer, and we can steal one of their planes.

He could see well enough to recognize Shego's delighted smirk, and this time it was he who grabbed onto her arm as she turned and started up in the opposite direction.

He closed his eyes for most of the walk, trusting her guidance and continued lifting his feet up and out of the snow to take each step. He tried stepping after her in the prints she made as much as possible, but his coat kept getting in the way. He ended up hiking it up to his waist and suffering the snow dampening his thin trousers in favor of not falling down.

The few minutes it had taken hours earlier to take the snowmobiles down the mountain turned into nearly forty-five minutes of cardiovascular torture.

"Shego!" Drakken wheezed. "Can we take a break?"

"Shh! We're almost there, just—"

A piercing alarm sounded and Drakken opened his eyes wide, blinking against the blinding white as he quickly took in their new surroundings. They were about twenty yards from the electric fence of the compound, but it was clear they had been spotted and had only precious minutes for their escape.

"Run for it!" Shego shouted and bolted toward the fence.

Drakken scampered after her, face-planting almost instantly in the snow as he forgot to hold up his coat. He grumbled as he righted himself and began running again.

Shego blasted the fence into nothingness just as guards on snowmobiles approached. Drakken began smiling as she took those out as well, leaving nothing but flaming wreckage and plumes of dark smoke.

"Hahahaha!" he laughed giddily as he caught up to her, patting the hard drive in his pocket. "The planes are this way!"

"No. Helicopter," Shego said, running toward one of the vehicles painted in gray camouflage.

He followed her, wondering why the less-powerful craft when on the other side of the base were powerful fighter jets.

"It's right here, and we can take it to the airport and get a plane there," she said as if answering his thoughts.

The reached the shelter of the chopper's side and found the door unlocked.

"Yes!" Drakken cried, raising his fists in triumph.

"There's no key!"

"Ngh, no!" he grimaced.

Outside, a male voice shouting in Russian drew Shego back to the door.

"Hot-wire it while I keep them busy!"

Drakken immediately got to work, listening to Shego's repeated blasts and the cries of pain of their adversaries. In less than a minute, he heard the roar of the turbines as he successfully bypassed the ignition lock.

"Haha!" he cried in delight.

"Move over!" Shego said, almost stepping on him as she slid into the pilot's seat and throwing headphones on.

Drakken scrambled up next to her and leaned out the open door as the craft lifted up off the ground.

"Victory is mine! First Eastern Europe, and then the world!" he shouted down at the angered military.

Just then a snowmobile with a machine gunner roared beneath the. The man began emptying his magazine and Drakken ducked back inside as the bullets slammed against the side of the helicopter.

Shego cast an angry glare past him toward the offending snowmobile and began turning the helicopter sharply.

"Yaaaahhh!" Drakken yelled as he fell toward the open door.

"Put a seat belt on," Shego shouted over the roar of the rotor.

Drakken scrambled into his seat and obeyed just as she fired a green blast past him and took out the man firing at them. She corrected the vehicle's pitch just in time to clear the fence and piloted it rapidly away and down the mountainside.

Snowflakes hit the windshield in rapid succession. The sounds of shooting and explosions diminished until only the spinning rotor remained. Drakken pulled the stolen hard drive from his pocket and grinned at it evilly as he drew his feet up onto the seat.

"We've gotta move before they send a fighter after us," Shego said, breaking his focus.

"Relax, Shego," he said calmly, tucking the hard drive away and hugging his knees to his chest.

"Relax when we could get shot down by the Russian army any second now!?"

"You'll take care of them," he said confidently, dismissing her with a wave of his hand.

Shego stared at him for several seconds, and then increased their speed.

In the helicopter, the journey to the airport was less than five minutes and flying below the radar, they had no difficulty until they were close to arriving. After some glowing persuasion, they agreed on crashing the chopper and jumping out into the snow to avoid having to deal with ATC, and getting on a plane as planned after that.

The jump went fine, and Drakken poked his head out of the thick snow drift just in time to see the column of flames rising from the crashed helicopter. He began shivering and rubbed his arms again, a satisfied smile on his face.

"What?" Shego said as she looked around cautiously for anyone who may have seen their escape.

"Another brilliant success! After we get these plans on the black market, it won't be long before I'm ruling the world!"

Shego dug out of the snow and stepped in front of him, still looking around.

"Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?"

Drakken smirked as she shook the snow out of her hair and adjusted her goggles.

"Maybe," he said mischievously.

"Hey!" Shego shouted as Drakken suddenly shoved a handful of snow down the back of her coat collar.

He ran laughing through the snow until his coat tripped him and he landed on his face deep in another drift.

Shego scowled as she brushed the icy substance from her neck, stalking toward him.

"All right Oil Baron, let's get back to a warmer climate," she said, grabbing his arm and dragging him forward.

He spit snow out of his mouth as he stumbled to his feet, still grinning.

"I think 'Kingpin' works better, don't you agree?"

Shego rolled her eyes. "No, no it doesn't."

He shrugged and patted the hard drive in his pocket, an adrenaline-fueled laugh escaping him once more.

Shego watched him and shook her head, giving in with an amused smirk. "Hmm," she said.

_**-**fin**-**_


End file.
